The Amazing Egg

Children's Literature

The attractive and informative books in the "Spyglass Books" series that focuses on life science, earth science, and physical science follow a similar format. They open with a table of contents page and then move right into the subject. Each chapter or section features a heading in large type; words that are defined in the glossary are printed in bold. The text consists of mostly declarative sentences with pictures usually on the opposing pages. For example, "A bird egg has five main parts: shell, membrane, white, yolk, and germ" The photographs are all labeled and appropriate to the content. However, the picture that shows the five parts doesn't make distinguishing them that clear. The text is simple, since these books are aimed at readers in grades 1 and 2. At the end of the text there is an activity or list of fun facts. In this case after learning about eggs, kids can try and experiments to discover which egg is hard-boiled and which isn't. The bolded words are defined; there is a resource list with a few references, which are reasonably current followed by an index and brief introduction to the author. 2002, Compass Point Books,
— Marilyn Courtot